Ascension: The One Who Takes

The deeper I dug, the clearer it became—Dr. Everett Lorne didn't just disappear. He was erased.

Every lead circled back to the same story, but it wasn't coincidence. Someone wanted me to believe he was gone for good. That meant he was alive. That meant I was looking in the wrong places.

The people who knew the truth weren't the ones whispering in back alleys or drowning in regret at rundown bars. They were the ones above it all, pulling the strings, deciding who stayed in the light and who vanished into the dark. I wasn't going to find Lorne by shaking down criminals anymore. I had to go higher.

It started with a name—Rourke. No first name, no digital footprint. Just a ghost whispered in high-stakes rooms where governments and corporations played chess with lives. If Lorne had vanished, Rourke's people either made it happen or knew who did. But finding him meant diving deeper into the kind of world where paranoia wasn't a sickness—it was survival.

That's where the refinery job came in.

A front for black-site operations, hidden in plain sight beneath an industrial complex. On the surface, it was a facility for processing high-energy biofuels, but the deeper I dug, the more obvious it became—this wasn't about energy. This was about something far more volatile.

Mutants.

Every source, every whisper, pointed here. If Lorne had been taken or silenced, this was the kind of place that held answers.

So I found the way in.

Project Reclamation.

The name came up in fragments—scraps of classified intel buried in mutant trafficking networks, whispered between those who dealt in stolen abilities. It was more than just a facility. It was a proving ground. A place where the powerful were either tamed or transformed.

And if they had anything to do with Lorne vanishing, then they had answers I needed.

Getting in wasn't easy. Their security was layered—bio-locks, heat sensors, high-level clearance that couldn't just be forged. So I did what I did best. I stole the key.

A high-ranking handler, responsible for processing captured mutants, disappeared during his usual route. His body was never found.

His clearance, however, worked perfectly.

The facility was colder than I expected, sterile and oppressive, the kind of place where individuality was stripped away. Every step deeper confirmed what I already suspected—this wasn't just a prison. It was a laboratory.

Rows of containment units lined the walls, some holding people, others holding… experiments. Mutants modified past recognition, bodies twisted by forced augmentation. Some were suspended in gel-like fluid, their vitals monitored by silent machines. Others were restrained, trembling under the weight of abilities they had never been meant to wield.

The deeper I went, the clearer it became. This wasn't just about control. It was about refinement.

I moved quickly, gathering what intel I could. Project Reclamation – Ability Integration Trials. The files detailed attempts to merge multiple abilities into a single host. The results were unstable—mutants suffering from cognitive breakdowns, physical degeneration. But they were getting closer.

This wasn't about enhancing powers. It was about creating something new.

A name appeared more than once—Dr. Everett Lorne. Not as a captive, but as a contributor.

That was all the confirmation I needed.

But by then, they knew I was there.

The alarm didn't blare—no sirens, no flashing lights. That wasn't how places like this worked. It was silent. Controlled. I only noticed when the lights shifted, the faintest change in the air circulation.

They were locking me in.

The first wave came fast—security teams armed with suppression weapons, designed to neutralize rather than kill. They wanted me alive.

I didn't return the favor.

The first guard went down hard, his armor crumpling under Titan's Grip. Another fired a stun round, but I was already moving, slipping past his aim before sending a pulse of Storm Vein through his system, shorting out his nervous system.

More came. Their tactics were sharp, their formations tight. But I was sharper. Faster. The integration of my abilities was becoming second nature. Living Ember seared through their defenses while Oxygen Efficiency let me push harder, move longer without tiring.

Then came something different.

Not a guard. A mutant.

He moved like a shadow, flickering between states of solidity and intangibility, a density-shifter. His attacks were precise—phasing through my strikes before turning solid just long enough to counter. He had been trained for this.

Too bad for him, so had I.

I let him slip through my first attack, reading his rhythm, watching for the moment he had to turn solid again. When he did, Devourer's Touch locked onto him. He struggled, flickering between states, but it was too late.

All For One.

And just like that, his power was mine.

The shift was instant. My body understood the ability before my mind did—how to phase, how to shift density at will. I turned, letting a volley of suppression rounds pass harmlessly through me before solidifying just in time to drive a punch into the nearest guard's chest.

The fight turned. I moved between states seamlessly, dodging through attacks, hitting with newfound precision. Their numbers didn't matter. Their weapons didn't matter.

I was already gone before they could stop me.

By the time I reached the outer corridors, the lockdown had fully engaged. Steel barriers blocked the exits. Automated turrets powered up.

I let all the energy stored in Devourer's Touch explode outward. The shockwave shattered glass, buckled walls, fried security systems in a single instant.

I ran, phasing through the last barricade just as the facility sealed itself shut.

The night air was cold, the distant hum of alarms fading behind me. I didn't stop. I didn't look back.

Because I had what I needed.

Lorne wasn't hiding. He was working.

And when I found him, he wouldn't be experimenting on others.

He'd be working on me.

Ascension continues.